


A Beast in a Crib

by legendofthesevenstars



Category: Tenkuu no Escaflowne | The Vision of Escaflowne
Genre: Animal Death, Character Study, Child Soldiers, Death, Gen, Mild Gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2020-01-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:07:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22139047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/legendofthesevenstars/pseuds/legendofthesevenstars
Summary: Dilandau hungers for blood from the moment of his creation. But killing means being alone.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	A Beast in a Crib

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nehasy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nehasy/gifts).



> This is my entry for the Escaflowne Secret Santa 2019. It's a SFW entry (even though it's dark!).
> 
> Happy Holidays, Nehasy! I hope I did Dilandau in all his murderous glory justice. :-)
> 
> Title from Henri Cole's poem "White Spine": "Being in a place not my own, much less / myself, I climbed out, a beast in a crib."

Dilandau is seven the first time he nicks a general’s face during training. Though it’s only a few drops of blood, his head spins with rapture. He has never seen another person bleed before. He has only seen blood in syringes and in transfusion IVs. The blood that they bleed is the same that flows in his veins. How exciting.

Something primal inside him longs to rend the man limb from limb. If he cracks all the generals open, how will their guts spill? Do they simply flop, lifeless, to the ground? Or do they spurt and squish like the flesh of oranges? His heart thrums in his chest when he thinks about wringing someone’s neck, about halving someone with his blade. People will turn to dust in his hands.

When he tells the Sorcerers, they do not reprimand him. They exchange happy looks among themselves.

“I knew the child would grow into his purpose.”

“He is entirely the weapon into which we wished to mold him.”

“All of our hearts’ desires are coming to fruition.”

His purpose. Alongside training, he is educated in diplomacy and manners. Such formalities are merely channels to help carry out his purpose.

For he was destined to hunt, and to hunt is to kill.

—

Dilandau is eight when he commits bloody murder.

His victim is just a mouse. There were traps set in the pantry aboard the _Vione_ , and the thing’s foot has been ensnared. He starts to taunt it as if it were caught in _his_ trap.

“You can’t get away now. _I’ve got you_ ,” he sings, laughing as he approaches the helpless mouse with a knife in hand—the pitiful creature seems to have resigned itself to its cruel fate. Then he is bending over it, cackling, hacking the thing to pieces. Blood rushes through his veins, his grin wider than the strokes of his knife-sword. His heart is thumping, and he’s short of breath.

When he finishes, there are bits of fur and blood everywhere. But the creature is still breathing. He hasn’t finished his job. So he bends over and cleaves the animal in two.

Dilandau giggles, his appetite for destruction sated. “ _Blood and guts… blood and guts…_ ” he sings.

The little body begins to go cold in his hands. Bile rises in his throat. There are no other mice around; no other mice have gotten caught in this or any other trap. The roaches, too, were exterminated, leaving only this mouse by itself.

“You’re alone,” Dilandau whispers.

His eyes go wide, and his forehead grows hot. He begins to retch and barely makes it to the sink before he passes out, head hitting the cool metal counter.

_Alone?_ Who else was alone?

A little girl screams in the back of his mind.

_Mouse guts. Blood. Alone._

He gasps for help and then blacks out.

—

Dilandau is eleven when he seriously wounds an opponent.

Folken shakes his head, escorting Dilandau away from the training grounds. His opponent Miguel was a brown-haired boy, a new recruit barely two years his senior. Dilandau, accustomed to heavy strikes that the generals had the size and strength to counter, leaned forward a bit too far, and then the uniform was cut open, and a gash appeared on the boy’s chest. The boy screamed and fell to his knees. _What the hell are you doing?!_

_What the hell are you doing indeed_ , is what Folken’s glum expression seems to say. He conceals his emotions, but Dilandau, intensely emotional, watches for the breaks in his stoicism. One day he may have to kill the Strategos, so it is better to know his weaknesses now.

“We do not mortally wound new recruits,” is all the Strategos says, walking alongside Dilandau, carefully watching to ensure he won’t get in any trouble. Not that Dilandau has anywhere to go. He’s already explored every inch of the _Vione_ , and Folken knows all of his hiding places. There is nowhere he can go, at least not right now. He can’t even escape to his beloved Melef. When he masters this one, he’ll be upgraded to an Alseides unit, a Guymelef built on the capital’s mass-production lines with the newest technology.

“He’ll live,” Dilandau retorts.

Folken sighs.

Dilandau rolls his eyes. “Oh, please, Big Brother Strategos, tell me how wrong it is to stir up a little trouble now and then.”

Folken does not reply, so Dilandau refrains from taunting him any further. At least for now. There is nowhere he can go, so it’s probably better not to get on Folken’s bad side. After all, he’s talked to the Emperor directly, and Dilandau has never even heard the Emperor’s voice.

Dilandau breaks the silence with, “Isn’t the sight and smell of blood thrilling?”

“That is no reason to wound your opponent while training.”

“Oh, why the hell _not_?”

“Because it is dishonorable.”

Dilandau grits his teeth. “I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”

“An honorable swordsman is respectful toward his enemies…”

Folken trails off, stopping in his tracks and facing Dilandau. Dilandau mirrors him.

“…but I suppose we are in the heart of Zaibach, aren’t we?”

A chill runs up Dilandau’s spine. His purpose. He was made for it. He wants it. Hungers for it.

Had his sword not been confiscated by Folken, he’d pierce that pale throat, just to see what would happen when the Strategos bled.

“I don’t care about ‘honor,’” Dilandau snaps, folding his arms to disguise his trembling hands.

“As you shouldn’t.” Folken’s reply is quiet, and he turns away and continues the long walk upstairs to Dilandau’s quarters.

—

Dilandau is thirteen when he kills a person.

Like the mouse, it is a mere coincidence. It happens during a brief civil war between the haves and have-nots, the rich soldiers in the capital and the poor country peasants. When it broke out, Dilandau and the other young men in his battalion—soon to be christened the Dragonslayers, of whom he would take command in a year—were among those sent to defend the capital.

The rebellion was quashed with Guymelefs and Melefs, which civilians did not own. They were at a disadvantage fighting on foot, but they refused to give in. Dilandau crushed buildings under the heel of his Alseides, leaving only the remains of the town and the dying in his wake.

The Zaibach military has proven its point, so the Strategos orders them to recover as many civilians as possible to encourage goodwill between the two sides. Dilandau despises it. Helping the enemy? He would rather kill all of them. But his soldiers, _his_ men blindly obey Folken’s order. One by one, Miguel, Shesta, Dallet, Gatti, Guimel, they all help pick up and carry civilians into the capital.

He catches snippets of their conversations:

“I’m sorry, sir. I wish it didn’t have to end like this.”

“Wow. You’ve really lived here for a long time.”

“I understand how you feel. It was quite a transition moving from the country to the capital.”

“Yes, land like this is rough on the farmers. I understand—my pa’s a farmer.”

Stupid, empty, saccharine sentimentality. Such sob stories are only tricks, he tells himself, tricks and falsehoods. How dare anyone question the glory of the Empire? The capital gave him everything: a place to live, breathe, fight, and kill. These people _have_ to be thankful that the Empire is giving them a second chance. If they aren’t, he’ll kill them.

He catches sight of an old man half-trapped under the rubble created by a shack. No one is attending to the dying old man, but he’s calling for help. How pitiful.

Dilandau’s hands are shaking again.

“You look like you’re the commander,” the old man grouses as Dilandau approaches.

“I _am_ the commander. Do you want help or not, old geezer?”

“You’ve got a sharp tongue…” He trails off, coughing. Blood is streaming down his forehead from an open cut.

Dilandau’s breath catches, his heart speeding up.

_Blood!_

“Blood,” Dilandau croons, leaning over the old man, shadowing his wan face. Something overtakes him, he separates from his body for a couple minutes, and when he comes back to himself, the sword is in the man’s heart, and the man is coughing a last gasp.

Dilandau chokes. He sinks to his knees. His hands are shaking, and he’s short of breath.

_Blood. Old man. Trapped. Alone._

_Mouse. Blood and guts. Alone._

Shesta’s panicked “Lord Dilandau!” calls him back to reality. He swallows, clenches his fists, and turns around.

“He… was already dead when I found him.”

Dilandau laughs. He cackles.

Shesta doesn’t have the heart to ask his captain what the hell he’s doing.

—

Dilandau is sixteen, and he is alone.

The dragon is crazed. The dragon’s eyes thrum with revenge and bloodlust. The dragon is mad. The dragon always had the look in his eyes like, _What the hell is your problem_? But now Dilandau knows that he and the dragon are the same.

_He and Van._

There is a scar on his cheek. The dragon put it there. The dragon sliced his cheek open without any restraint, and then he escaped.

_Van_. He vowed to get his revenge.

There was a scar on Miguel’s chest. Dilandau put it there when he was eleven. Now that scar is gone. Now Miguel is gone.

_Van._

_Blood._

_Alone._

Now Miguel, Shesta, Dallet, Gatti, Guimel, they are all gone.

Now he understands what the Strategos meant. Now he understands honor and disrespect. Now he sees the dragon playing by their rules. And he does not like it when the dragon plays by their rules.

He can’t fathom killing the dragon. He hasn’t even begun to process how many the dragon has killed.

_When will you stop, Van?_

Alone.

A little girl screams in the back of his mind.

Dropping the carnation, Dilandau sinks to his knees and leaves his body.


End file.
